


Second Skin

by Toft



Series: Skinverse [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossdressing, First Time, Humiliation, M/M, Prison Sex, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-01
Updated: 2006-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:09:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toft/pseuds/Toft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's more than one kind of uniform.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: opening scene contains sexual harrassment (of John), and humiliation. Other than that, no warnings apply to this story.

"Hey, boy, some service over here!"

As John rounded the corner of the long wooden table, swaying with the tray of drinks, a clammy hand slapped the back of his thigh and slid down to the crease of his knee, leaving a damp stain on John's bare skin, and for a brief instant John thought of the long, slow peel of a knife. His thighs were slick with sweat and beginning to chafe where they were forced together, and his jaw hurt from clenching it so tightly shut.

"It's a good look for you, John Sheppard," Sarris leered. His hollow eyes and spare face, framed by close-cropped black hair, made him look like a corpse. John showed his teeth and thought very hard at him, _when I get my gun back, I'm going to shoot you in the balls._ Sarris' grin hardened a bit, and he leaned over and slapped John on the ass, hard, then slid his hand up John's side, slipped his fingers up under the fabric that clung to John's chest, and they felt like hot little worms burrowing into John's skin.

"Enjoying this, Colonel?" he whispered, and pressed his thumb down hard into one of the bruises on John's ribs.

"Fuck you," John grated out. He stared at a point above Sarris' shoulder, thought, 2389, 2393, 2399, 2411, fucking prime, Rodney, Sarris palmed his bare ass under the skirt and squeezed and John didn't move, didn't move.

*

When the guy with the black eye (from Teyla's elbow, before they'd been split up) had thrown the folded bundle of fabric at John in the cell and sneered, "The commander requests your presence," for a moment his insides had dissolved in cold panic, in the utter certainty that they knew, they _knew_, how could they know? - but then he'd forced himself to take a deep breath, rationalize. It was just a little humiliation, letting him know who was boss, in lieu of any actual torture, since this Sarris asshole had been clearly shaken by the team's (extremely vocal) insistence that they were from the lost city of Atlantis, and that reinforcements would be on their way. John could deal with this. Still, his voice had shaken just a little when he drawled, "I don't think so."

Rodney had snapped, slightly hysterically, at his left, "Oh my god, is this really the time? My life is more important than your macho self-image!" and that made it easier, oddly, although when they'd made him strip off his uniform at gunpoint (well, pistols, really, crude and nasty, pointed at Rodney, not John), he felt like it was his skin being peeled off, leaving his insides exposed to the air.

The skirt was short, made of treated leather, and it slid further up over his thighs if he took steps as long as he was used to; the halterneck was really mostly collar with a token attempt at covering the chest, made of something stretchy and synthetic, and left his back and shoulders bare, except where the silver chain lay cold and alien against his skin. They'd taken his dogtags and given him this instead; it had a medallion engraved into the same insignia as was painted on the flag on the wall of their hall, and looked like it could be connected to something else, like a leash. With those clothes on, with Rodney looking deliberately at the wall, thin-lipped and silent, John felt more exposed than if he'd been naked, and on the long walk to the hall he couldn't stop shivering.

When the first guy smacked his ass, John lashed out quickly, surprising them, and nearly broke the guy's arm, but he'd gotten a pistol-whip across the shoulders for that, along with a reminder that McKay was still in the cell and he'd better fucking co-operate if he wanted to see the guy alive again, and in one piece. Which he did, so he crawled inside himself, as far as he could go, until the whoops of the grunts – _hey, looking good, your parents bar-slaves, boy?_ – sounded tinny and far away. _107_, he thought. _109, 113, 127. _

"Oh, thank God," came Rodney's voice, loud and frightened over the screech of the metal door as they marched John back to the cell, and it was like breaking the surface after being underwater for hours. "Are you okay? I – oh. Jesus."

Grunt #2 indicated that John should take off the sandals he had been issued, and John toed them off, wincing as the movement rubbed the shackles against his raw ankles, and thought, 5507. As they unlocked the second, barred door and he shuffled into the cell, hands still cuffed, Rodney exhaled sharply, but still didn't say anything.

"Everything okay in here, Rodney?" John rasped, and was surprised at what an effort it was. He stepped back against the bars for the soldiers to uncuff him, and the sound of the key turning in the door hurt his ears. He was slowly letting go his hold, coming out, blinking slowly and beginning to shake, wakefulness returning like blood flowing back into a frozen limb. Rodney was twitching, backed right over to the other side of the cell and looking everywhere but John.

Finally, he coughed a little in his throat and said, faintly at first, then gathering volume, "Yes, yes, I'm, um, fine, although you would not believe what these morons -" and he was off, thank god, thank god, drowning out everything with reassuring noise, making things _normal_. The cuffs went _snick-click_ behind him, and John hunched forward and rolled his shoulders with a sigh as the grunts marched out and locked the metal outer door behind them, but Rodney faltered, stopped. John looked around and caught Rodney, then, his eyes wide and scared but flickering up and down over John's body, and there was almost an audible snap in John's head as Rodney saw him staring, dropped his gaze to the side and swallowed, and John thought, with a sudden hot clarity of rage, _that motherfucking bastard, he's checking me out._ He'd had stares scraping his skin raw for hours, and Rodney, Rodney's stare was burning him like salt, and John hated it, hated him, was across the cell in an instant and grabbing him by the collar, shoving him backwards so that he stumbled over his own feet until John caught him again, pulled him upright.

"You want some, McKay?" he snarled into Rodney's face, pushed him backwards again before he could answer, and the noise Rodney made when he hit the wall was sharp and sweet, so John moved in, put his hands on Rodney's broad shoulders, pinning him, and pressed his mouth against Rodney's, bit down on his lip hard enough that Rodney jerked backwards and hit his head. He could feel Rodney's quick breaths fluttering against his face, and Rodney said, "Wait, oh my god, John, did they drug you? Are you drugged?"

"Yeah, Rodney, that's what they did," John hissed, and then he had his tongue in Rodney's hot, welcoming mouth and Rodney's hands on his back and waist, stroking away the grimy residue of stares and touches. Someone was making broken, desperate sounds, and when John realized it was himself he tried to pull away, but Rodney's hand was buried in his hair now and somehow he'd been turned around so he was backed against the wall.

"John," Rodney gasped, his breath hot and damp on John's bare shoulder, "You're – this isn't – oh god, you, like this, I can't -"

But John was lost, now, couldn't stop himself; the whole last few hours were crashing over him like a wave and pulling him under, drowning him, and he was choking, gasping in Rodney like air, murmuring _please, please,_ into his neck and trying to rub against his thigh without much success, the friction vague and frustrating through the stiff leather.

Rodney made a noise like terror in his throat and bent to lick John's shoulder, then slid further down, oh god onto his _knees_, dropped sloppy, frantic kisses onto the bare stretch of skin above John's hip, his stomach, then shoved the skirt up around John's hips and put his mouth on his cock. John's head dropped back and he had to bite back a scream, because Jesus fuck, Rodney was licking a wet trail up his dick under his _skirt_, and it was so fucking hot that his spine had turned to lava and was melting, dripping down the wall; he'd been half-hard for hours, from the moment he'd put on the skirt, aching from the fear that they'd notice, that they'd see, and now it was like Rodney was cutting him open with his mouth. John squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in air close-mouthed, fists clenched by his sides, but he still sobbed out a yell when he came, clean heat stabbing him like a knife, and he had to grab blindly at Rodney's shoulders to hold himself up.

"Jesus," he panted, "Jesus, Rodney."

Rodney spat on the floor, wiped his mouth and said thickly, "Shut up, oh, god," into John's thigh, and then was standing again, scrabbling at his pants and shoving against John like he couldn't concentrate enough to do one or the other, making these choked, desperate noises with every forward thrust of his hips. John was still shaking and his muscles felt like rubber, but between them they managed to finally get Rodney's fly undone, then John grabbed Rodney's wrist and pulled his hand down between them. Rodney caught on quickly and wrapped one hand around himself with a grateful whimper as John stroked his thumb over the soft, pale skin of Rodney's wrist. After about four strokes Rodney ground up against John, pressed his face against his collarbone and came with a choked-off yell. He shuddered for a couple of seconds, then slumped against John. He smelled like sweat and burning rubber and he was heavy, solid, and John held on to him like he was falling.

After a couple of minutes, during which he maybe fell asleep, Rodney dropped an absent little kiss on John's neck which made John jerk, surprised. Rodney stiffened and pulled himself back and away, and the wall was cold against John's bare calves and shoulders, the rawness on his inner thighs where they'd been chafing earlier was stinging with sweat and come, and he was suddenly unable to stand the clothes against his skin for one more second. His hands didn't seem to work properly, though, and he was shoving ineffectually at the skirt and swearing before Rodney sighed and batted John's hands away, said, "Oh, for god's sake, let me," and undid the tiny catch with his clever fingers.

Then finally, finally the skirt was sliding down over John's legs and he was stepping out of it, leaving it standing up on its own on the floor, a weird, stiff little husk. He kicked it into the corner, then stripped off the top too and wiped himself off with it before hurling it after the skirt. Rodney huffed with irritation when John just stood there, naked and shivering, rubbing his biceps and shifting from foot to foot. He bent down and started to pull off his trainers, but it was only when he kicked them off and started to undo his fly again that John caught a clue, backed away and said, "Hey, woah, I appreciate the thought, Rodney -" then felt suitably abashed when Rodney pulled his pants off and handed them to him, giving him a patented McKay _oh my god you're such an idiot_ glare. John pulled them on, shaky with gratitude, as Rodney stripped off his jacket and tossed that to him too. Rodney's pants didn't quite fit but it was like getting his skin back, like waking up again inside his own body after his mind had been in the Aurora.

"Sheppard," Rodney said abruptly, looking ridiculous in his t-shirt and boxers, his legs pale and hairy above his socks. "Are you -"

"What the fuck do you think?" John snarled tiredly, wincing as the rough fabric of Rodney's pants brushed the blisters at the backs of his ankles, and already it was easier to breathe.

Rodney just watched him for a minute, his eyes narrowed slightly, chin forward. Then he said, "Right, yes, fine," and for once, John could not tell at all what he was thinking.

By the time the guards turned up to return them to the delegation from Atlantis, led by a royally pissed Elizabeth, John's hands weren't shaking anymore. His feet were bare as they walked back to the jumper, but he had the jacket zipped all the way up, and it was Rodney they all stared at as he strode into the daylight, glaring, in his underwear and shoes.

When they got back to Atlantis, John showered for about half an hour, then ran until his lungs were burning and his whole body hurt, then showered again and collapsed into bed. It was only then, as he stared at the ceiling and waited to fall asleep, that it occurred to him that, technically, he'd had sex with Rodney. It felt weirdly remote in John's mind, though, like a memory that belonged to someone else, and when he thought deliberately, _I kissed him,_ he couldn't remember how it had felt. He shrugged, turned to face the wall and didn't think about it any more.

*

At the morning meeting, Elizabeth held out her hand, cupped around a glint of silver.

"I forgot to give you these yesterday," she said, her smile apologetic. John's dogtags slithered into his upturned palm, and the slide of the chilly metal against his skin when he pulled them over his head made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He was too aware of the weight of the chain resting against his collarbone, slowly drawing heat from his body, and he could feel Rodney's eyes on him. At the end of the meeting he walked straight back to his quarters, avoiding the eyes of everyone he passed, sure that they were staring, and had his fly open and his hand on his cock before he had the door completely shut. After he came, he thumped his forehead against the wall and whispered, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," until he couldn't feel the dogtags anymore.

He lost Rodney's uniform in the laundry at the first opportunity, figuring it would find its way back eventually. He went running with Ronon, got beat up by Teyla, did paperwork, trained three marines and a biologist to fly jumper three, then made an emergency landing with no power after Henderson inexplicably shut one down mid-flight, apparently thanks to the distraction powers of Kwoju throwing up in the back. The next morning, John arrived at the jumper bay early because although Kavanagh had assured him that he'd fixed whatever John had broken when he brought them down, John felt that he should take the baby out first for a nice, smooth ride to apologise. Rodney was there, on his knees on the floor of the jumper, staring with intent concentration at a panel, and John had to step back abruptly and take a few deep breaths to calm down his flashback-induced hard-on.

"Oh, hey," said Rodney distractedly, when John had just about gotten over it and announced his presence by coughing. "Quiet. Thinking. Pass me that." He waved vaguely in the direction of a small black thing, which John picked up gingerly and handed over. The light from the crystals made Rodney's face look pale, tense, and it made John twitchy to look at him, but just as he was about to leave, Rodney said, "Since you obviously don't have anything better to do than gape like a four-year-old, you can sit in the front and bring me up some system read-outs, so I can work out if its possible to permanently screw up one of these things by having the concentration of a goldfish."

So John did, because he was actually kind of interested in that himself, and he always enjoyed this, dipping his mind into the jumper's interface, feeling the click of rightness when he thought in the right direction and the grids of light jumped up in front of him. Rodney pulled himself up with a huffed grunt, then came to look over John's shoulder and hummed a few times. Then he said, totally casually, "So, have you been avoiding me because we had sex or because I saw you dressed like Xena?"

The grids broke into static as John whipped around to look behind Rodney into the bay, and they flickered out entirely when he slumped back in the chair, satisfied that no-one had heard but sweating cold and feeling like he was about to have a heart attack.

"Wow, that's reassuring," said Rodney. "Remind me never to let you fly me anywhere ever again."

I don't know if you've heard, McKay," John rasped through gritted teeth, "but there's this rule in the military where you're not supposed to ask."

"Well, excuse me," hissed Rodney, "maybe if you'd, oh, I don't know, told me some time before I spent a week distracted by guilt because I thought I'd taken advantage of your intoxicated state that you weren't in fact on drugs, I'd be a little more sympathetic. If I hadn't happened to mention it to Carson" - John leapt up blindly, but Rodney cut him off before he could speak - "oh, shut up, obviously I didn't say, how stupid do you think I am – I might have made a fatal error in some calculations and blown up the city, all because of your pathetic masculinity."

John pushed past Rodney, keeping his fists tightly clenched at his side and his mouth firmly shut, because, contrary to the belief of his superiors, he did actually have a survival instinct, and right now it was telling him to get the hell out of there before he did some serious damage.

"Don't worry, _Colonel_," Rodney spat, already turning back to the wiring. "I'm sure there's some ascended priestess out there who'd be happy to let you wear her panties."

Then, quite abruptly, Rodney's head was snapping to the side as John's fist connected with his jaw, and Rodney was sprawled on the floor of the jumper as John cradled his knuckles, because he hadn't thrown such a fucking sloppy punch since grade school.

"Ow," said Rodney, sounding amazed. "Oh my god, you hit me."

He moved his head experimentally, then sat up, holding his jaw, and pulled off his radio to check it. "Wow, that really was completely unnecessary."

John stared at his knuckles, which were already swelling up a bit and hurt, then back at Rodney, who was picking himself off the floor.

"You hit me," he said again, insistently, as if John were denying it. "You hit me, and therefore you have a thing." Rodney stabbed his finger into John's chest triumphantly, and John tried not to flinch.

"A thing?"

Rodney lowed his voice conspiratorially.

"A dressing up thing. A _crossdressing_ thing."

"I – I, a what?" croaked John, and his voice didn't sound like his own.

"You _do_," breathed Rodney, looking as if he'd just opened a closet and found a ZPM. "Oh my god, that's so hot."

John put his face in his hands and thought, _this is not happening to me,_ because in the Pegasus galaxy, anything was possible. Maybe it wasn't.

"Jesus, Rodney. Look, I'm going to assume that the jumper has somehow… interfaced with your mind and made you crazy. We need never speak of this again."

"Interfaced with my – you're so -" Rodney spluttered, then pulled himself together. "I don't think so, Colonel. Can I add at this point that I think you have broken my radio and quite possibly my jaw, not to mention that you took the last of the chocolate pudding at lunch, and there was that stupid _four hour_ Athosian ceremony you made me attend last week. In summary, you owe me."

John dropped his hands and stared, because, Jesus, he hadn't seen this coming. Not from Rodney. "Are you blackmailing me?"

Rodney's mouth fell open and he threw up his hands, looking horrified. "No! And quite frankly I'm offended you could even – well, okay, looking back over this conversation I can see how you might think – but, no!"

John let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, then took another and held himself very still when Rodney stuck his chin forward in a way that meant he was about to do something that frightened him.

"I'm simply proposing... an arrangement."

John narrowed his eyes and hoped, hoped that Rodney didn't mean what he thought he meant. That he wasn't that stupid. He shot a glance through the hatch to the jumper bay. Still empty, thank god.

"An arrangement?"

Rodney cocked his head to the side and looked at him narrowly for a moment before his face changed and he took a step closer.

"How old were you?" His voice was soft now, relentless. "You don't have a sister. Was it a cousin? Did you wait until they were all out of the house, then go through her closet to find something that fit you?"

John let out a harsh breath that cut like a sob in his throat, tried to say something, but he couldn't hear himself over the roaring in his ears.

Rodney advanced another step, close enough that John could see the sweat glistening on his upper lip, and the way his mouth quirked up at the corner in a weird, grim little smile.

"Did you jerk off in front of a mirror? Did you want-" then John pressed his mouth against Rodney's, hard, anything to shut him up, and Rodney was kissing John back hungrily, licking into his mouth. When they pulled apart, John had black spots dancing in the corners of his vision and felt like he was running a fever, burning up.

"Fourteen," he rasped, and thought hysterically, _not prime_. Rodney's eyes fluttered closed like that was the hottest thing he'd ever heard in his life, and he lunged forward and pressed his mouth to the side of John's neck with a lost, hungry whimper. John didn't seem to be able to get enough air into his lungs, and the combination of scratchy stubble and warm, wet mouth pressed against his skin was disorienting, threw the world off balance. "My cousin, Charlene, she had cherry lip gloss," he heard himself say, licked his lips and tasted the memory of the sticky-sweetness under salt and coffee, and oh, god, he'd never told anyone this before and he couldn't stop, but he really, really had to. "I put it on, and I – I – Christ, Rodney, Henderson -"

"S'okay," Rodney mumbled urgently into the hollow of his throat, "door's – ah – door's locked. I locked it, John, oh, god, please."

John let his head fall back with a groan as Rodney cupped him through his pants and squeezed. His gasped breathing was too fast, too loud, they'd both gone insane, totally out of their fucking minds, but right now he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I put it on, and I, I put on this black skirt she had," Rodney finally got John's fly open, and John had to stop and gulp a couple of breaths when his cock was suddenly released from the vice-like constriction of his pants, and what felt like all the blood left in his head rushed southwards, "and a p-pair of her panties underneath -"

Rodney made another noise in the back of his throat and shoved his own pants down as far as they'd go, and then was pressed up against him all the way and oh, god, it was good, Rodney's hand wrapped around them as he pushed against John in a sweet, clumsy rhythm, breathing words against John's neck, his jaw, his ear, _John, John, you don't know how, god, you're so, I want, oh, Jesus._

"Rodney," gasped John, "fuck," and arched into Rodney's hand as he came, hot and shaking and shattered into a million pieces.

When his brain came out of meltdown, John was sitting on the floor and Rodney was cleaning them up with a rag from his toolbox, still breathing hard and moving sluggishly. John, who was impressed Rodney could move at all, thought, dazedly, _he has very nice shoulders,_ and grinned idiotically. Rodney paused and looked down at him, and his smile was very sweet.

"You are so freakishly beautiful. Get up now, they're trying to break down the door."

John pulled himself up shakily, his whole body humming, and tried to tidy himself up. He became aware that his radio was buzzing in his ear, probably had been for some time.

"Okay, I'm coming! I just borrowed the door crystal to try something with the jumper!" Rodney was yelling, already moving in the direction of the muffled thumps on the door of the jumper bay. John shook his head to clear it, and opened his radio channel.

"Sheppard," he said, and shivered as he tasted Rodney in his mouth.

*

Rodney appeared at his door at just past midnight, hands held tightly behind his back and his mouth in a hard, determined line, and although John had been waiting for him for hours, pacing as he rehearsed this, he completely forgot what he'd been going to say. There was a purple bruise on Rodney's jaw, but it didn't look too bad.

"Look, Rodney," he finally began, but Rodney blurted out at the same time,

"We need to have sex right now."

"I, um, I think maybe -" said John, and then Rodney was shoving him into his room, already right there with his hands on John's hips and his hot mouth on John's neck and his hair shower-damp under John's fingers, muttering, "God, all day, I couldn't concentrate, do you have any idea - you were _looking_ at me," and of course John had been, for fuck's sake, he'd practically jumped out of his skin every time Rodney came near him, paralyzed with the fear that he'd say something, let something slip, and the knowledge pounding at him that this was utterly, inexcusably stupid on so many levels. He still knew that, and finally managed to get his hands off the solid planes of Rodney's back long enough to push him off, far enough that he could think. Rodney stared back at him, his eyes wide and dark, breathing hard, and John got as far as, "Look, Rodney, I don't -" before he had to stop and kiss the crookedness from Rodney's mouth, which pretty much screwed that line of argument.

"Shut up," Rodney murmured into his mouth, several minutes later, when they'd made it to the bed and got John's shirt off. "You're not going to get this anywhere else. I'm the mmphm phmmphmm," He paused as his head disappeared in his shirt as John tugged it over his head, "the soul of discretion, and I know your dirty little secret, which, in case you didn't realize, I'm totally fine with."

John licked his nipple, and Rodney gasped gratifyingly. Then John figured, in for a dime, in for a dollar, and it wasn't as if they weren't already half-naked, so he pushed Rodney down, crawled over him and said,

"So, what kind of arrangement did you have in mind, exactly?"

"I, uh," said Rodney, high and breathless, and wasn't that a kick, that John had thrown that mind off track. "I thought maybe we could – ah - have kinky sex on a regular basis."

"Huh," said John, and licked a long stripe over the soft, pale skin of Rodney's stomach. He tasted good. "You know, I'm into other kinds of sex too."

"Oth- other kinds?" Rodney's voice cracked with alarm. "What other kinds?"

For a brief second, John considered yanking his chain, but then decided that this situation was already kind of precarious, and perhaps it wasn't the time. He looked up and raised an eyebrow at Rodney, though, because, _really_.

"Ordinary kinds, Rodney."

Rodney jerked and pushed himself up onto his elbows to stare at John. "Really? You – really? Well, yes, yes, obviously regular non-kinky sex could be part of the arrangement."

John was considering whether to be offended or not that Rodney apparently thought he was some kind of one-button pervert when he had a horrible thought. "We're not going to write a contract, are we?"

"You know, it really is amazing that you've managed to stay in the military for this long," Rodney snapped, and John figured he'd deserved that, so he went back to touching as much as he could, wherever he could, because Rodney was warm and soft all over, but with the promise of hard muscles underneath on his shoulders and thighs, and he squirmed breathlessly under John's hands even while he kept talking; Kirk jokes notwithstanding, having someone to touch – someone solid, someone real - was too rare a thing for John not to appreciate it. Besides, making Rodney lose his train of thought was cool. "So, as I was saying, you get a safe outlet for your, hmm, proclivities, I get to participate, and we blow off some steam in the process. It's a perfect plan."

And, yes, John had clearly lost his mind, but right now that sounded like a pretty good plan to him.

"That's not all I can blow off," he growled, because he just couldn't pass that one up. Rodney made a noise halfway between a snort and a squeak, and that was the end of that conversation.

*

Later, John didn't remember much of the next few weeks. If he concentrated, he'd be able to pick out the mission to MX3224 where Ronon got bitten by a baby crocodile with horns, and a successful trade agreement with the Cithaerians on MX3994, exchanging cotton wool – which, for some reason, they had in abundance on Atlantis, John really didn't want to know why – with a kind of rice beer that tasted like cider.

For the most part, though, he walked around distracted by the way his body hummed with the joy of having semi-regular (but highly irregular) sex, and by the panicked litany of _whatamIdoingwhatamIdoing_ that drowned out everything else. He'd flash through scenarios of security cameras, emergency call-outs, just one pissed-off marine or a scientist with a grudge dropping a word to Caldwell, who would be only too happy to get rid of him, or even Ronon seeing something, saying something to somebody, not realising; most of all, though, he felt like everyone could see right through him, that they'd only have to look at his face and know.

His uniform felt strange on his body, like it had been made for somebody else, brushing rough in unexpected places where his skin was sensitive from stubble-burn or bites, making him shiver, while pulling it on in the morning after he'd been with Rodney the night before (his room or John's or another place they'd found, away from where they might meet anyone at night) felt strangely like putting on heavy armour, or a straitjacket. He found himself standing straighter, stiffer, during the day, to hold in the warm, melting feeling he carried around inside himself, like he was made of toffee left too long out in the sun; on nights when they were on missions, or Rodney was working, or they hadn't had time to exchange a shuttered glance, a nod – _tonight? Thank god, yes, tonight_ \- he'd lie flat as a board on his bed, unable to unbend and relax enough to sleep. He hadn't felt like this since he was a teenager, like the bruised centre of the universe, raw and bright.

When, on the seventeenth day, Elizabeth stuck her head out of her office as he passed and said, "Colonel, can I have a word?" he felt the fight-or-flight adrenaline kicking in before he'd even walked through the door, and when she looked at him seriously and said, "John, whatever's going on between you and Rodney has got to stop," he felt like the floor had dropped away beneath him.

"I know he can be difficult sometimes," she said with an indulgent smile, a slight shrug, _geniuses,_ "But I don't need to tell you that both you and he are very important to this mission, and you two need to be able to work together."

John, whose mind was finally stuttering into action, starting to catch up, opened his mouth to say something, but Elizabeth put up her hand to stop him.

"I don't need to know the issue, Colonel; you're both mature adults, you can work it out between yourselves." A quick, piercing look, "unless it's something I should know about?"

John forced his tensed muscles into a shrug.

A warm, open smile. "That's great. And, John – no more punch-ups in the jumper bay, okay?"

"No problem," croaked John, and left. He made it a few corridors before he threw up on the floor in front of two botanists, who fussed and felt his forehead and had him in the sickbay before he could get himself together. He finally managed to get away, after Carson had made him write down everything he'd eaten in the last forty-eight hours in case there was an outbreak of food poisoning and had told him strictly to go and lie down and drink lots of fluids. He did go back to his quarters, brushed his teeth, turned on the faucet and held his head under the cold jet until his face ached. Then he got up and went straight to the lab. Rodney looked up the moment he came in, and was already tapping keys to save his work and shoving his chair back from his desk before John gestured towards the door. Zelenka looked between them nervously, and the other scientists all looked away quickly when John glanced around. John wondered if they were worried for McKay's safety, and almost laughed.

Rodney grabbed his arm the moment they got outside, hard enough to bruise, and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "Did Elizabeth talk to you too?"

"Yeah," said John, and thought forcefully, open, at the first door they passed, then yanked Rodney through. Rodney stared around them.

"Hey, did you just create a room? Because I swear this wasn't here bef-"

"Rodney," John almost yelled, and just, just managed to stop himself from punching the wall, remembering Elizabeth. Rodney jumped and stared at him.

"Hey, wait, are you freaking out?"

"Yes, yes, I am," said John, and realized that he was.

"But – oh, hey, hey, okay, you're sitting down right now. Jesus, are you okay? Should I, uh, get Carson or something? Oh my god, do you have a heart condition?"

"I'm fine," John gritted, put his head between his knees and tried really, really hard not to throw up again, while Rodney patted his shoulder awkwardly. When John shook him off, irritated, Rodney stood behind him for a little while, not touching, then sat down beside him carefully and tugged at a loose thread on his pocket until John had pretty much finished panicking.

"So," he said eventually, "we start eating meals together again, you come to the lab every other afternoon to activate stuff, I insult your plans in staff meetings and you don't boast about my sexual prowess in front of the marines."

"That's your plan?" John said incredulously, lifting his head.

Rodney glared. "Well, since, as usual, you seem to be relying on my brilliance to save the day, _Colonel_, and I have a few other things on my plate at the moment, like, say, saving us all from the many and horrible fates that await us, yes, that is the plan. Feel free to come up with any better ideas, but I think you'll find that that one covers all the bases. I admit that I should have laid down some ground rules for behaviour in public at the beginning, but I was – foolishly, apparently - relying on your initiative. I mean, hello," – Rodney pointed at himself, "genius scientist," – then at John – "_does stupid things_. This is your territory! I should be the one freaking out here!"

John struggled to find something to say - _I just didn't think about how much I had to lose_ sounded stupid, and besides, it wasn't true. Anyway, Rodney was right; he'd shot the military commander of Atlantis in his first week, for god's sake, and since then he'd disobeyed orders, flown a nuke into a hive ship and let his lieutenant go batshit-crazy and run off into the woods. In terms of attempting to preserve his career, he didn't exactly have a great track record, and that wasn't even counting Afghanistan.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said instead, and it felt like those words had been nestled in his chest, and letting them out had left an aching hollow.

"Well, possibly," snapped Rodney, "but we are. Can I go now?"

Oh, thought John, dazedly, still sitting on the floor as Rodney stormed out, already yelling something about long-distance scanners at Zelenka before he'd gotten a few feet down the corridor. _Well, okay then._

*

Later that day, he forced himself to walk past two empty tables in the canteen to sit opposite Rodney, who was reading some printouts and shovelling Athosian stew into his mouth at about the speed of light. He looked up for a second when John sat down, said, "Oh, hey, see if you can find any mistakes in these," handed John a couple of pages and tossed over a red pen from one of his pockets. John ate his stew and weird doughy pancakes and tried to follow the string of equations on the paper, marking anything that jumped out at him, with a distinct feeling of anticlimax. When he was done, he shoved them back over to Rodney and stood up, and Rodney held out his hand, palm open, as he skimmed over the pages. John stood there for a moment, nonplussed, until Rodney said, irritably, "_Pen_," and John flushed, pulled the pen out of his pocket, dropped it on the floor, picked it up, put it in Rodney's hand, jerked back when their fingers touched and knocked his tray off the table.

"Oh, for god's sake," said Rodney with deep disgust, but he bent down to pick up John's cup where it had rolled under his chair and set it back on his tray, then said, "Leave it there, I'll take it. I'll, um, see you later?" with only the tiniest note of uncertainty in his voice that made it a question. That and the fact that the paper Rodney was reading was upside down made John feel a hell of a lot better.

*

That night, Rodney was already waiting for John in the room they'd marked out on the third level, towards the south of the city.

"Anyway," he muttered, as if they'd been mid-conversation, struggling to undo John's thigh holster while John kissed his way up his neck to his ear, "you're - oh, god - so hot for me, so don't even think about trying to - oh, do that again."

"Busted," said John, surprising a breathy laugh from Rodney, and bent to lick the sweet spot in the hollow of his throat, because, at this stage, really, there was nothing else he could say to that.

*

Three nights later, when John came out of the shower, Rodney was sitting on his bed, already unlacing his boots.

"Just make yourself at home, McKay," John said, and Rodney looked up, opened his mouth, then stopped dead mid-retort. It was like John saw him in slow motion, the catalogue of physical responses – eyes widening, pupils dilating, his face flushing.

"What?" John snapped, when Rodney's stare was beginning to make him edgy.

"Don't take off the towel," Rodney said, low and hard. John swallowed, because, Jesus, he was pretty sure he'd never heard that voice before. He looked down at himself, the white towel around his waist, saw what Rodney saw and got so hard, so quickly that he saw spots in front of his eyes.

"Get over here," Rodney growled, and John went, dazed. When he got close enough, Rodney grabbed him by the waist and pulled John in so he was standing between Rodney's parted thighs, then slid both hands firmly around and down over John's ass and squeezed through the thick, rough cotton. He bent his head to lick John's stomach.

"I realize that this isn't exactly," he muttered, pausing to nip above John's naval, "what you had in mind, maybe, but," John hissed as Rodney flicked his tongue downward under the rim of the tightly-wrapped towel, "in the absence of online shopping," he pulled the fabric taut over John's erect cock and blew hotly through the cotton, which scraped almost painfully against the sensitive head every time it bumped against it, "I got you something. In my jacket, top left pocket."

John tried to concentrate as Rodney bit and sucked hard on a spot just above his hip while he fumbled at the zipper; finally he got it open and felt something hard against his fingers, a plastic cylinder about ten centimetres long. He tugged it out and looked at it, and his mouth went dry. Rodney looked up quickly, said, "I have no idea if you – I mean, I just saw it. I can take it back."

John popped the cap one handed and twisted the tube to slide the lipstick up. It was pinkish-red, not too dark.

"Where did you find this?" He sounded hoarse.

"Um, I, someone left it in the lab."

John looked at Rodney, who squirmed a little, then threw his arms up impatiently.

"Okay, it may have been in a desk drawer, but what self-respecting scientist keeps makeup in a hazardous environment? I would have confiscated it anyway."

"You broke into someone's desk and stole makeup for me." And, god help him, it was so gloriously surreal that John couldn't help grinning, even though his mouth felt dry and his chest tight and he couldn't quite take his eyes off the glistening red column of paint.

Rodney coughed embarrassedly. "Well. Maybe. Do you want to, um," he gestured towards the bathroom. "You don't have to, if you want to you can just keep it. I don't even know if it's the right colour or anything. I mean, I've never even got any for a woman before, I don't know anything about this stuff."

"It's fine, Rodney," John said firmly, although his chest was so tight from something like excitement that he could hardly breathe. In the bathroom he had to stand still for a moment before he could even look at the mirror. Finally he found the Vaseline, and ran a finger over his lips the way Sarah used to (and he used to love to watch her colour her mouth waxy red and touch glittering powder to her eyes on the few mornings when he'd stayed; she wouldn't go outside without it, and he'd never understood if it was the careful ritual that made her safe, or the colour on her face like armour), and then the lipstick, gliding smooth, painting his mouth into a stranger's. He went over the edges the first time because his hands were shaking, and he had to get some tissue to wipe it off and start again. The next time, he was more careful, and blotted his mouth on a square of toilet paper, leaving a kiss-shaped print. Then he turned around and Rodney was barefoot in the doorway, watching him, his face naked and hungry.

"Thankyou," John said, and then was kissing his own clean taste out of Rodney's mouth, wet and messy and fierce, teeth and tongues and, god, what he wanted, what he needed, Rodney clutching convulsively at the towel at John's hip with one hand, the other interlacing fingers with John's own. When they broke apart to breathe, Rodney's mouth was stained red and messy, bruised, and it hurt to look at him.

"Fuck me," John whispered, rough and unsteady, and felt Rodney breathe out, breathe in again. "Like this."

"Okay." Rodney hardly made a sound, but John felt the cool brush of the words on the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, okay."

In the bedroom, Rodney stripped with unerring but jerky movements, all the time staring at John like he couldn't take his eyes off him, even for a second, and John watched, aching everywhere he wasn't touching Rodney. Then they were falling together, stumbling towards the bed, and Rodney was saying urgently,

"I – yes, John, I need -"

"Lube's under the bed."

"Condom?"

John hissed through his teeth with frustration, shoving the blanket off the bed and recovering the pillow. "I'm clean, are you clean?"

"Yes, but -"

"Then hurry the fuck up!"

Then he was face-down against the hard mattress and two of Rodney's fingers inside him, stretching him, with starbursts of friction from the rough towel against his cock jolting through his body with every involuntary thrust, the soreness only making the bolts of heat sharper.

"Who says," Rodney panted behind him, and twisted his fingers inside John so that he arched into the mattress, "crime doesn't pay?"

"I could still – arrest you," John managed, then Rodney eased his fingers out of him, agonisingly slowly, and shoved the towel up around John's hips. He muttered something that sounded like, _oh, god,_ and then was there, a blunt, burning pressure, forcing his way slowly in, and John had to bite down on his arm to ride it out, because the twin stabbings of pleasure and pain from the head of his cock against the rough cotton and from Rodney sliding in were ripping him apart, and copper blurred the waxy taste of lipstick in his mouth.

"John, oh," Rodney said brokenly, sounding like he was drunk, and thrust shallowly, once, as if he couldn't stop himself, and this time John didn't bite down in time and couldn't stop the sob that came out of his mouth. Rodney hissed, "Fuck," and thrust again helplessly, sending sparks down all John's nerves when he was already burnt up, too much. "Tell me, ah, I can't, John, please, please," Rodney was saying, but John couldn't speak, couldn't even breathe, so he braced against the mattress and pushed up against Rodney's weight, tried to make his body open up, say _yes_. Then Rodney pressed an open-mouthed kiss to John's back and was fucking him, making a little ah noise in his throat with each thrust, rocking John against the mattress, and feeling filled John up like a whirlpool of fire and broken glass until it spilled up and out, and somewhere Rodney gasped, "can't, can't, John, sorry, god Iloveyou," but John was falling with only Rodney holding him and could not hear, could not even remember, later, wondering what it was that Rodney couldn't do, or what he thought he had to be sorry for.

*

Rodney crept out at four a.m. that morning after dressing in the dark and ruffling John's hair softly as he left, leaving him to doze for two hours before had to get up. It hurt John to sit down for one day, to pee for two, and the red marks on his arm from his own teeth didn't fade for three. He wore sleeves down to his wrists for five days, even when they went to investigate a possible alpha-site where it was over eighty for most of the day, and he didn't touch Rodney for nearly a week. When Rodney fell down a hole, dislocated his shoulder and then refused to let anyone reset it until they'd got him back to Atlantis and anaesthetised him, John and Ronon held him down and pulled it back into place as he screamed.

Back in the medical bay, John stood next to the bed while Rodney bitched at Carson, who was patiently trying to put a sling on him. Far sooner than could have been justified, John snarled, "for fuck's sake, Rodney, don't be such a baby," and Rodney snapped his mouth shut into a tight, miserable line and let his arm be strapped up. When Carson went to get the ibruprofen, casting a reproachful look at John on his way out, Rodney sat still, white and hurt, and John stood several feet from him, tapping his feet and so abjectly furious that he didn't trust himself to speak.

Eventually, Rodney snapped, "I think you've done enough, Colonel; you can fuck off, now," so John did. That night, stupidly, dangerously, he waited in Rodney's room in just a t-shirt for two hours until he came back so John could pull him inside and kiss him, undress him silently, spell _sorry_ onto the purple bruising with his tongue.

Rodney muttered, "You are such an asshole," but he kissed John back just as hard.

*

Once, as they were both pulling their clothes back on, zipping up and buttoning down, going back to their rooms six hours before they had to be up again, Rodney, who was always more awake after sex than John, and maybe that was why John didn't notice the slightly odd edge to his voice in time, said, "Why do you like it, really?"

John yawned. "What?"

Rodney waved his arms in a vaguely suggestive manner. "You know. The women's clothes thing. I mean, you've got to admit, it's pretty far from the stereotype. Air Force, football, ferris wheels and things that go really fast, all that crap. How does it fit in?"

Caught off guard, and thinking longingly of his bed, John shrugged.

"Come on, throw me a clue here," said Rodney. "You're thirty six years old, don't tell me you've never thought about it."

"Rodney," John said impatiently, pulling on his backpack. "It's late."

"Look," he said, and John was caught short by the note of pleading in his voice. "I just want to know."

"I'm _tired_," John said, really irritated now. "Jesus, Rodney, will you just let it go?"

"Does it make you feel attractive? Is it because it's not allowed? What?"

John made to push past him, and Rodney grabbed his arm, clapped his hand right over the flag on John's shoulder, and John recoiled instinctively. Rodney stared at him, then let his hand fall.

"Fine," he bit out. "Fine, whatever."

He stormed off towards the nearest transporter, leaving John wondering what the hell that had all been about, and with an uneasy, itchy feeling under his skin that he couldn't shift for days, even after Rodney turned up at his door three nights later with printouts of their most recent assessment of the Genii's progress on their nuclear weapons and a bad copy of _Kill Bill 2_, which easily passed as an apology from him. He didn't mention it again until a few weeks later, when he and John were tied to a pole behind a tent, back to back, waiting for Teyla to either negotiate their release or signal to Ronon to blast his way through the wooden fence of the encampment to get them out. Both John's hands had gone numb, they'd played prime, not prime for a while, Rodney had complained about his hayfever and briefly panicked about the possibility of his fingers falling off from loss of blood, then said, "Hey, now that we've got some time on our hands, ha ha, so to speak, maybe you've got time to answer that question I asked you a few weeks ago."

John hissed, "Have you gone out of your mind?" and then Teyla came around the corner with two unbelievably tall men holding spears, and that closed the issue anyway. John forgot about it, until the next and last time Rodney brought it up, when they were sitting on Rodney's bed, going over some flow charts, when John lost his patience, snapped, "for Christ's sake, Rodney, I'm in the military. Do you think I talk about it to my fucking therapist? You're the one who knows about the scene, not me. Why do people normally do it?"

Rodney blinked at him. "Are you kidding?" he said. "I don't know anything about it. I've never met anyone who was into it before. That's why I'm asking."

John stared, completely floored. "But – you – _you_ came to _me_."

"Well, yes," said Rodney, as if it were completely obvious. "If you were into being covered in maple syrup and wearing a diaper I'd still want to have sex with you."

"Are you telling me," John said, trying to keep his voice level, "that all this time, you've been pretending to be into this, so you could – what, McKay?"

It was at this point that Rodney faltered, and apparently realized he'd slipped up, because he jumped up, away from John. "Well, when I say I don't know anything about it," he stammered, "I mean from a hypothetical point of view, but, yes, ah, of course I'm on the, um, scene."

John advanced on him, humiliation sharpening his anger until it felt like it could draw blood. "You lied to me. What is this, Rodney? I thought we had an understanding, here."

"Oh, do not do that. Do not do that. I have _had it with you,_" Rodney exploded, quite suddenly so furious that John stepped back, shocked. "What do you think I am, do you think I _pretend_ with you? The deal was, we both get what we want – the fact that what I want is you had nothing to do with anything!"

Rodney had gone bright red, and John spread his hands, alarmed, and put on his best _I'm a reasonable guy face_, which he mostly used for facing down crazy people with guns. "I just would've preferred it if you'd been straight with me from the beginning, Rodney."

"Oh, that's really funny," sneered Rodney, and John remembered that that face never had worked too well. "Would that be straight as in, 'I'm so straight I have an irresistible compulsion to sleep with every hot alien woman I meet and frequently endanger myself, not to mention my team mates, oh, and four point three billion people on my planet'?"

"Hey," protested John, but Rodney was in full flow, pacing and waving his arms, and something in John held him back from stopping him.

"And then you go and show alarmingly repressed cross-dressing tendencies, and I think, hey, Lieutenant Colonel Self-Sufficiency needs something, maybe I have a chance after all here. You seemed remarkably receptive, so I drew the perfectly sound conclusion that you're not averse to having sex with me once in a while."

Rodney stabbed John in the centre of his chest with his finger, bug-eyed and wild, and John had the feeling that this was all rapidly slipping beyond his control, but Rodney went on before he could think of a way to stop him, "I work eighteen hours a day to prevent this city and everyone on it from being blown into a million pieces in one way or the other, I've nearly died forty-three times in the last eight months, so tell me why I shouldn't get something I want, when it doesn't hurt anybody? You get to dress up and have sex with someone willing and available, what the hell do you care if I spend a small amount of my precious time in the idiotic and completely pointless activity of being in love with you? I am essential, _essential_ to the survival of this expedition, and it's your responsibility to - oh, oh god, I totally didn't mean to tell you that. John, John, I'm sorry, please don't – just forget I said it, I didn't mean it, I promise, I'll never say it again, I'll-"

Rodney slumped against the wall, then slid down to sit on the floor, and John couldn't move, couldn't breathe, because Rodney had flinched bodily when he'd heard the words that had come out of his own mouth, stared at John, ashen-faced, and all this time, John had thought he was the one who was frightened.

"Oh, god," Rodney muttered eventually, looking at his hands. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it, but I just wanted - I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone in a second, just, I want to sit for a minute, I'm so tired."

The sight of Rodney, hunched and miserable in his frayed t-shirt, looking like all the anger had been drained out of him and left nothing behind at all, left a sick pain in John's chest that twisted until it snapped. He went to him and reached down tentatively, awkwardly, to rest his hand on the back of Rodney's neck, but slid his fingers through the short, soft hairs at the back of Rodney's neck, Rodney went rigid and still beneath them, and John felt clumsy, incompetent, like he was trying to touch Rodney in the wrong language and had been, all this time. He closed his eyes with frustration, then started to struggle out of his jacket. He ripped it off and threw it into the corner of the room, then started on his pants.

"You genuinely can't do it, can you," said Rodney, looking up at John with a kind of despairing bemusement. "I can't believe you, you are so screwed up."

John stood there, and tried to think of something to say.

"What is it with you? It's like you've some multiple personality thing going on. You hardly talk to me any more when you're not naked, and if I try and even come within three feet of you out there, you look at me like I'm something a wraith has drooled on. I don't know whether I'm going insane, or you are." John looked at the hollowness in his eyes, the shadows in his face, and wondered how he had not noticed this, that this had been eating away at Rodney inside, and thought that maybe because Rodney broadcast complaints about everything else, John had stopped looking where Rodney was quiet.

"You tell me, John," Rodney said tiredly, "what am I supposed to think?"

"I don't know!" John found himself shouting suddenly, and this time the words weren't leaving an ache in his chest, it was like he'd wanted to say them forever, like a constant pain that he hadn't noticed until it went away. "I don't know, okay? Jesus, Rodney, I've never even been with a guy before!"

Rodney's mouth fell open.

"Oh," he said, and swallowed. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"I've always – but, I've never actually," said John helplessly, rubbing at the back of his neck, unable to look at Rodney. "I should have told you."

"You are such a fucking idiot," said Rodney, and he got up, came forward and wrapped his arms around John, clumsy and not gentle at all, and John clung back, laying his head on Rodney's shoulder. "Jesus Christ, John."

John whispered, "I'm sorry," and Rodney rubbed his back and mumbled distractedly into his hair,

"It's okay, it's okay, shh. I can't believe you, you know that? I should have known, you give crappy head. And you just let me – you stupid bastard. God, I need a drink. Do you want a drink?"

He jerked out of John's hold and went to pull a plastic beaker from under the bed, still chattering in that high voice that meant he was teetering on the edge of panic. It was cold in the room, when Rodney wasn't pressed up against him, so John found his t-shirt and pulled it back on. "I don't know what this stuff is, Zelenka made it, did you know he has a still? He's getting sixty five proof so far, but mostly we've been using it to clean stuff." He stomped into the bathroom and re-emerged with a glass. "I think he uses those red Athosian potatoes, Robinson gets them from the kitchen in exchange for a cut."

"Rodney," said John. "It's not your fault."

"I know, I know that," Rodney muttered, and he sat down on the bed and put his face in his hands. John sat down beside him, picked up the bottle, poured a shot into the glass, then downed it. When he'd stopped coughing, he poured one for Rodney.

"He's trying to kill me," choked Rodney after swallowing it, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "The little bastard."

They sat next to each other on the bed, their thighs pressed together, and they abandoned the glass, swigging straight from the beaker until they couldn't stand the taste any more. After a little while, John slipped his arm around Rodney's waist. He felt light, disconnected.

"I stole that lipstick from Elizabeth's desk before a meeting," Rodney said, and John choked while Rodney giggled brokenly beside him. "When I was a kid, I used to steal stuff all the time. I was compulsive," John shook his head helplessly, hiccupping with laughter, and Rodney, in almost as bad a state, gasped, "no, seriously, my parents, they took me to a therapist, and I haven't stolen anything in, like, twenty years, and then you come along, and reawaken my bad – bad habits..." John folded over, holding his stomach, and Rodney toppled against John, shaking, until they'd both calmed down enough to pull themselves up onto the bed and curl around each other, dizzy-drunk and tired.

"Do you want to stop this?" John murmured.

"No."

"Good." John waited what seemed a decent interval, then cleared his throat. "Rodney," he said, "I'm not sure I can -"

"I know. I don't care."

"You'll still -"

"Yes."

"You'd really -"

"Yes! God, could you make this more humiliating? I'm pathetic, we've established this."

"Okay," John said.

Just as he was drifting into sleep, Rodney said out of the darkness, quiet and meandering, as if he was talking to himself, "It's all you, John. You think it isn't, you think you can't be Schwarzeg- Schwar- Rambo and, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert or whatever at the same time, but you can, you're so smart, I know you, and you're brave and strong, you can be anything you want. You know, I've spent my entire life up to now in nice, quiet labs, and now I'm going out, shooting life-sucking aliens and stealing makeup from my boss for my transvestite colonel boyfriend. If I met me now a year ago, I wouldn't recognise myself, and it's, it's really scary. I'm scared."

John wanted to tell Rodney _you're the smartest person I've ever met_ and _you keep up with us, even though we're trained and you're not,_ and how when he'd been in the sanctuary of the Ancients he'd let his beard grow, not because they hadn't had razors, but because he hadn't been able to look at himself in the mirror. Mostly, though, he wanted to tell Rodney that recently, pulling on his uniform with the Air Force insignia made him feel like he was tearing part of himself away, like Peter Pan and his shadow, but that he no longer knew which of them was the shadow; that, when Rodney touched him, he made John believe that Rodney, Rodney's clever fingers could sew him back together. He pressed his lips against Rodney's shoulder, warm and dry through his t-shirt, the part of him that was closest, and held on to him tightly, tightly.

Rodney pressed closer to him. "We are so fucked up," he whispered, and John thought he could feel the gentle rock of the sea cradling the city.

*

The next morning John had a pounding dehydration headache and Rodney threw up, swearing foully at Zelenka, Athosian potatoes, John and the entire universe, so John went to get him coffee.

"You're such an asshole, I hate you," Rodney said, and John kissed the top of his head and was late to the staff meeting.

*

Against all probability, life went on, and things really weren't much weirder than they'd always been.

*

Three months later to the day, John was saying to Rodney over the radio, "We'll fly right through it."

There was a crackling pause. "Oh, surely you can't be serious."

"I am serious," drawled John, "And don't call me Shirley."

"That's not what you said last night, Colonel," Rodney retorted smartly over the radio link, right on cue, and John choked on his powerbar, somewhere between laughter and panic, as the four marines in the back snickered behind him. "Oh, and if you ask me if I've ever been in a Turkish prison I'll get you court-marshalled for sexual harassment," and John suddenly thought, without warning, _we're okay,_ and he put the jumper into a side-spin for the hell of it and whooped as the sky flipped somersaults, blue and bright as summer.

*

"I cannot believe you said that to me in front of four marines, McKay," John said later, feeling that he should be pissed off, but, Jesus, you had to admire the man's balls.

Luke parried jabs from the training drone with his lightsaber on Rodney's laptop, and Rodney ran a hand idly up John's thigh, which was bare under the dark blue cotton skirt, a new acquisition from the mainland, gotten through so many go-betweens that John wasn't even sure who'd actually bought it.

"Yes, well," Rodney said, too airily, "it's all part of my cunning plan to acclimatise you."

John frowned, and Rodney ducked into a smirk that seemed oddly shy. "Well, if you've built up sufficient resistance before our next trip back to Earth, I, ah, know about this bar in Toronto…"

John looked down at himself, and tried to imagine being in public like this, where no-one would know them; the evening air on his bare legs, soft fabric clinging to him all over like electricity, with Rodney's hand on the small of his back, steadying and leading. Rodney would probably pull out a chair for him with ridiculously flamboyant courtesy, buy him some multi-coloured drink with umbrellas and would bend down to kiss him right there, with other people's eyes on them, and get lipstick smeared on his mouth.

"Jesus," John swore fervently, then twisted round and pulled himself up onto Rodney's lap, the skirt riding up around his hips as he straddled him, then took hold of his jaw and kissed him deeply. When he came up for air, Rodney was panting hard and staring, bright-eyed.

"Yeah," said John shakily, "Okay, I – we - could do that."

"John," Rodney whispered, reaching up to touch his face, and he made it a promise, a certainty, like a perfect number, and John pressed his face against Rodney's shoulder through the sudden, blinding moment of feeling wholly like himself.

End  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to aspacer, who betaed and made some essentially useful suggestions - any mistakes remaining are my own. This story has obsessed me unreasonably, so thankyou so much to everyone who's given me encouragement or listened patiently to me ranting about this story over the last few months, especially A and K, who must, I'm sure, have had the urge to kill me more than a few times. I hope it was worth it. If not, well, I'll make an effort to finish that Due South story in consolation. I really appreciate it, guys.
> 
> [Cover by shusu](http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f245/yangtzu62/secondskin-lowres2.jpg)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Second Skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/431622) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)




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